


We Run While We're Young

by Utuinen



Category: Star Stable Online, Starshine Legacy (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Hopeful Ending, Mostly compliant with both the original ssl lore and the new lore from sso, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Set somewhere in-between the games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-25 00:14:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20367439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Utuinen/pseuds/Utuinen
Summary: After Garnok has been defeated everyone is trying to move on with their lives the best they can, except for Alex who feels like she can't get over all the horrible things they experienced, even when normal everyday life continues around her.





	We Run While We're Young

Many times during her life Alex had thought school was a kind of torture. Now it was dawning on her that _not_ having school to go to, to give her days structure and to take her mind off things could be just as equally agonizing.

The house was quiet, yellow light of late afternoon filtering through the thin curtains swaying gently as the single table fan rotated. It didn’t do much to keep the summer heat at bay, leaving Alex feeling clammy all over as she lazed on the couch, her head resting against an armrest and her hands reaching towards the floor above her head. She was home alone, with her mother at one of her jobs and each of her brothers who knows where.

Their old playstation was on, the visual on the TV screen alternating between the game’s starting screen and the opening cutscene that played again if you did not press anything for a certain amount of time. Alex had thought to play, but had soon decided she didn’t feel like it after all. She would’ve wanted to play with James, but he had had less and less time to play with her lately. Or maybe he just didn’t want to play video games with his big sister anymore. It was all part of the things changing with time, she supposed.

There was no point in wasting electricity so Alex turned the TV off and closed her eyes. She was tired even though she had done largely nothing the whole day, but not tired enough to fall asleep. She wasn’t sure if it was good or bad, on one hand she craved the sweet unconsciousness of sleep, on the other she was afraid of the nightmares returning.

Alex could feel a headache forming.

She decided she needed to get outside, so she got up and snatched her wallet and keys, and was soon out of the house.

Normally Alex loved the Jorvik City. She loved how busy the city was, how you could never know who you were going to run into. But now she drowned the city out with her headphones and the newest album of The Miscreants, taking a deep breath to steady herself as she set her legs walking the familiar roads. The band wasn’t exactly something she would have usually listened to on her own, but it reminded her of Lisa, and right now she needed it. After all, she was the bravest girl Alex had ever known, and she hoped she could borrow even a bit of that bravery for herself.

Alex arrived at the Leonardo’s ice cream parlour.

They had eaten there once, all four of them. It was after Lisa had won the race with Starshine, and Linda had said they should all celebrate the win together. Lisa, who was new, had obviously never eaten at the place, but neither had Alex. Anne and Linda were shocked--”And you _dare_ call yourself a local!” Anne had exclaimed. Alex had managed to keep a sharp comment about how not everyone’s family rolled in money to herself and not ruin everyone’s good mood--and the girls had insisted they try at least three flavours each, just to know which one was the best. Since Anne had treated them, Alex had said boldly she would taste all of them, but had had to give up after the fifth one. She had felt sick for days afterwards.

The memory made Alex smile and she decided to stop there. She ordered her personal favourite, mint with chocolate chips, and sat outside in a table shadowed by a tree. The Miscreants continued to play in her phones.

The ice cream was good. It always was. But it didn’t taste the same now that she was alone. It felt like it belonged in another world, somewhere Alex could never return to and not even Anne could open a portal there. It belonged in the past, in a normal life, where danger meant Mrs. Graham catching the girls playing hooky.

And that was the thing, Alex didn’t feel normal anymore.

Everyone else was gone, continuing their lives the best they could. Following their dreams, Lisa with her music and Anne riding in France. Even Linda had grown elusive of late, busy with her new summer job she apparently hoped to make permanent.

Yet Alex couldn’t do it. She couldn’t move on and live like nothing had happened.

Everything felt wrong. It felt like the sunny street where the cars rode past wasn’t real. Like the teens laughing over ice cream with their friends in the neighbouring tables weren’t real. The fear, the desperation she had felt when they had faced Garnok was real. She remembered it all so vividly, how Katja had attempted to steal her brother from her, and now she never felt at ease when James was a bit late coming home. She remembered how she had ultimately had to face Mr. Sands alone, with nothing more than her own power to help her.

Her power. The power to take a life. To kill.

Alex noticed her hands shaking.

Maybe it had been easier for the others to shake all this off because of their powers. Lisa could heal. Maybe she could heal herself as well, mend all the ways the _adventures_ had broken them. Linda could see the future. Maybe she saw a long, happy life, not filled with fear, uncertainty and the constant threat of Garnok. Anne could create portals. She was free to come and go, free in every meaning of the word, though in her case it could have just been that she refused to think about anything that happened, too.

But Alex was broken and hurt, and any future she could see was bleak, and she was most definitely not _free_. She was shackled by her own mind, by the guilt she felt over everything. By the nightmares that had her waking up screaming in the middle of the night, tears rolling down her cheeks and her tired mother running into her room to see if she was alright. Alex knew mother was worried for her and blamed herself for not understanding what had changed in her daughter, and Alex hated to add onto her burdens.

Oh, how she wished she could just go back in time, back to when she was happy and normal and didn’t know how it felt like to fear for one’s life. Or rob another of theirs.

Yet around her the world continued, so _normal_, so relentless and hell-bent on change.

Alex finished the ice cream and threw the cup into garbage.

She felt like running. She hadn’t been to the stables in days, and she felt guilty about that, too. She couldn’t hear Tin-Can’s voice all the way to the city, but if he was angry with her for leaving him on his own--as if Herman hadn’t taken great care of him--she would apologize and make things right again. Tin-Can would understand her.

Alex had changed. Her life had changed. But change wasn’t always for the bad, sometimes it was just different. What had been broken would heal over time. She would stop living in the past, and she would find a way to continue forward. Eventually.


End file.
